Halloween: Selling a spooky home this season

The best guide to selling a spooky home this season. It may be the time of the year when people across the world get their masks and costumes out to celebrate all things spooky and ghoulish, but while Halloween is one of the most popular times of the year for letting go and having fun, it’s not necessarily something that transfers well into the property market.

Hanging cobwebs, witches and pumpkins in and around your house might make it a popular spot with party goers, but homes which have a perceived history of a horror house or tales of hauntings can be very difficult to sell.

According to a study, homes that have a spooky past can actually lose between 11 and 20 per cent of their value when it comes to finding a buyer. Only last year serial killer Dennis Nilsen’s former home went up for sale and made the national news. The house which was situated in one of London’s prime areas was listed 32% below comparable properties on the same street.

So how do you you sell a spooky house?

There are a number of things you can do to improve your chances of selling a house with a spooky past. Presentation really is everything when it comes to selling any house, especially one that comes with a sordid history. But, get the curb appeal and staging right and potential buyers should quickly forget about any horrible history that’s attached to the property.

Presentation is key to selling a spooky house

Improve your kerb appeal: The key thing is to make your home appealing, and this will include inside as well as out. Viewers will often make a choice before they ever step into a property. Tidying up the garden, mowing the lawn and giving the front door a lick of paint can give the home an all new lease of life.

Make your property listing stand out from the crowd: With an estimated 90% of house buyers starting their search for a property online, marketing photographs are key to attracting a buyer. Read our guide on how to avoid bad estate agency photos to make sure you get it right, first time!

Declutter, declutter, declutter: Believe it or not, failing to declutter your home when selling can make all the difference. Regardless if you are selling a fixer upper; if potential buyers can’t see past the clutter, how can they assess how much work it required etc? You need to make your home look large and spacious if it’s going to grab the attention of anyone who’s coming to buy.

Let there be light: If darkness and mystery makes a home for a Halloween party, light will create a fantastic atmosphere for selling. Natural light makes a home feel bright, airy and happy, so make sure you have all your curtains and blinds open to make your home feel spacious and impressive.

Dress it up: Staging your home for a sale can mean dressing it up a little and making it look fancy. If you have a dining room, for example, it can be all too easy to leave it looking bland, particularly if you don’t use it often. However, setting the table for dinner with a nice set of crockery and some candles gives an aspirational feel that buyers pick up on and makes your house all the more attractive.

Struggling to sell you spooky, horror house on the open market?

There are alternative options to achieving a quick house sale, if you are having no luck on the open market. The quickest and most hassle free approach is to use a professional cash home buying company like Quick Move Now, who have over £6 million available to directly buy residential properties. There are absolutely no costs or obligation if you ask for a cash offer from Quick Move Now, so this option is well worth exploring if you don’t want to pursue it.

Alternatively you can try to take you sell your property at auction, but it’s likely potential buyers in the room will have the same prejudices as those buyers on the open market.